Puppy rectal prolapses

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Member Since 02/24/2013

Barked: Sun Feb 24, '13 6:44pm PST

Hi everyone,

We have a 4.5 month old French Bulldog who has had 2 rectal prolapses within 4 weeks.

Over the 2012 holidays, our little Rocky started having soft stool which then turned into diarrhea. We took our puppy to the vet to have him checked out but it was too late and he prolapsed later that night. He then had a purse string in for 2 weeks and as much as we tried to have his stools at the right consistency, it was a process of trial and error but with stool softeners and wet gastro puppy vet food, we got it right after 1.5 weeks. That said, there was some straining while he had his purse string in and we were concerned that might've been contributing to another prolapse in the future.

The vets assured us that the purse string wasn't too tight and we have x-rays done to make sure it isn't an internal issue.

Sure enough, 2 weeks later he prolapsed again. We had been monitoring his stool closely and we had it down to a science somewhere between pebbles and soft stools. We literally cheered every time he had a good poop! This second prolapse came without much warning, the mucus covered diarrhea started about 4 hours before the prolapse.

Our vet thinks this could all be caused by a food allergy but we're not 100% sure. Our little guy's had his second purse string in for almost 4 weeks now as we decided to keep in until we figure out his diet/food allergy.

We've been adding pumpkin to his food. He's been tested for parasites 3 times and he's been on parasite meds/deworming a few times.

This weekend he was straining so much that it looked like he had prolapsed but inside the skin. It receded after his bowel movement but he has a really really hard time passing his stool, sometimes it took up to 10 minutes

The other issue is that he's now started peeing in the house after being house trained. It's almost as though he can't hold it in. We've had him tested for crystals, bladder infection or UTI just last week so we've ruled that out.

I'm writing all this here because we're extremely confused and the vets we've seen can't seem to help shed light on the cause of these issues. The last 7-8 weeks have been extremely worrisome and we feel as if there's no solution or end in sight.

We love our little Rocky to pieces and we can't stand to see him suffer

If anyone could share any info or similar experiences it would be so extremely helpful.

What is his tail like? Because of the shortened tail, some frenchies have issues with the nerve controlling their anus. Sometimes, if the tail is extremely short or there is a pocket around the tail the result will be lots of prolapses caused from pressure of the tail base on the rectum.
In extreme cases I have heard of internal amputation of the embedded tail stump.
Jones has the opposite problem. He cannot "close" his rectum and needs constant butt wipes. This is still an issue with the shortened tail causing issues with the nerves.